Back Issues, volumes 1 through 21

volume 19 number 4Diet Myths

SPECIAL ISSUE on Food and Diet Myths: Decoding Food Labels by Harriet Hall, M.D.; An Evolutionary and Functional Perspective on Chronic Disease, by Kenneth W. Krause. ARTICLES: Sneezing Customs: A Blessing in Disguise, by Karen Stollznow: Does AA Work? by Carol Tavris; “Chemtrail” Fail: Are Contrails Really Toxic Chemicals Sprayed by a Secret Conspiracy? by Donald R. Prothero; Skepticism: A Rare and Beautiful Thing, by Daniel Loxton; Whole Lot of Nothing: Tales of a Cosmological Argument, by Jérémie Harris; Thinking Critically About Psychology’s Classic Studies: Revisiting Studies by Milgram, Harlow, Mischel, Sherif and Others and What They Mean Today, by Carol Tavris; How to Lie with Statistics, by Gary Smith. SPECIAL SECTION: CHANGING MINDS: The Core Conflict Between Creationism and Evolution Do Unique Definitions of “Science” and “Proof” Allow Creationists to Disregard Evidence of Evolution? by Ralph M. Barnes; Why is Critical Thinking so Hard to Teach, by Kevin McCaffree and Anondah Saide. HUMOR: Genetic Park: Engineered Crops Run Amok on a Tycoon’s Island by Kyle Sanders. REVIEWS: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty, reviewed by Burt Stillar; Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris. Junior Skeptic: Flat Earth?! The Convoluted Story of a Flatly Mistaken Notion, by Daniel Loxton.
View table of contents and availability

volume 19 number 3The Multiverse

Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse, by Victor J. Stenger; Quantum Immortality —Some Physicists Think You Might Already Be Immortal; SkepDoc Harriet Hall on Sound Healing; Can Dolphins Talk?; On Miracles, by Harriet Hall; Are Blood Type and Personality Linked?; Carol Tavris on The Negative Side of Positive Thinking; The Extraordinary History of Mass Hysteria in Schools; The Shroud of Turin Can Now Be Easily Dated; Junior Skeptic: Ghost Photos Part II, by Daniel Loxton. Empirical Studies on: Are RelIgious Nations Better Off? and How Much Free Market is Too Much? Special Section On Changing Minds: How a Cartoon Kept Quacks Away from Infants; Explaining Evolution by using health issues as examples; How Intuition Can Block Scientific Understanding. Reviews: A Review of Your Inner Fish a Three-Part PBS Documentary reviewed by Donald Prothero; A review of Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander, reviewed by Chris Edwards.
View table of contents and availability

volume 19 number 2Boston Bombing Conspiracy Theories

The Multiverse and the Deity; In Defense of Soft Theism; Soul Searching: An Evolutionary Problem for Theists; Mass Hysteria at Old Salem Village; Conspiracy in Boston: Disentangling Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracy Theories; The Miracle of Large Numbers Can Explain Seemingly Miraculous Events; Reasons for Hope in the Science of Artificial Intelligence; Deciphering The Voynich Manuscript; The SkepDoc on Faith Healing Tragedies; New column by Carol Tavris: The Gadfly: The Science of Memory and the Dylan Farrow/Woody Allen Case; Junior Skeptic: Photographing Phantoms, Part One; Reviews: The Man Who Filmed Nessie; Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil; Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience; God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States; The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science; Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—a 13 episode TV series hosted by astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson
View table of contents and availability

volume 19 number 1Did Jesus Exist?

Did Jesus Exist? We Examine the Best Evidence by Tim Callahan: Let’s Get Real [about Evolution], Even if it Hurts by James Randi; Face the Music by Karen Stollznow; Does Religion Make People Healthier? by Harriet Hall, M.D.; An Insider’s Look at Faith Healing by Dustin White; Except: Imagine There’s No Heaven: The Seeds of Modern Atheism and the Tragic Life of Madalyn Murray O’Hair by Mitchell Stephens; James Van Praagh and the Afterlife by I. H. Smythe; Ghostbusters Busted at Sand Creek by Gregory F. Michno; Why Whistleblowing Doesn’t Work by Frederick V. Malmstrom and David Mullin: James R. Flynn on Rising IQs, interviewed by Lee Traynor; Comic: Holistic Airlines—The Natural Way to Fly by Kyle Sanders; Junior Skeptic: Carl Sagan by Daniel Loxton; Ten Billion by Stephen Emmott and Countdown by Alan Weisman reviewed by Michael Shermer; The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking by Matthew Hutson reviewed by Kevin J McCaffree; What’s So Great about God (Formerly Godforsaken) by Dinesh D’Souza reviewed by Franz Kiekeben; Hardcore Zen Strikes Again by Brad Warner reviewed by Mike Moran
View table of contents and availability

volume 18 number 350 Years of JFK Conspiracy Theories

How Hunting Developed Scientific Thinking; The Great Radium Craze; Randi On the Founding Father Of Scientology; Child Preachers From Jesus to Marjoe Scientology’s War on Medicine By Harriet Hall; beware of the “Sovereign Citizen” scam; how Science Denial threatens us all; psychic Sylvia Browne Debunked Again; REVIEWS: Media-driven Panics and Hoaxes; A Classic Example of Confirmation Bias; A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind; Science Basics and Amazing Anecdotes; Growing Up in the Amityville Horror; Junior Skeptic: Mermaids…
View table of contents and availability

volume 18 number 2Gender Differences

What Science Says and Why it’s Mostly Wrong; Gender and the Paranormal; What Science Says About the Soul; An Interview with Controversial Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon; Is the Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversal Dangerous?; Scientology Self Help Handbook; Can We Trust Science Media Reports?; Why The Universe Exists; Skeptics in Film; Witchcraft Ceremony. Junior Skeptic: Alien Invaders!… and more…
View table of contents and availability

volume 17 number 3Christian Nation?

Is Ours a Christian Civilization?; Are We Alone? How Astronomers are Searching for Extrasolar Planets; The Flake Equation; The Physics of UFOs; Interstellar Travel; multiple personality disorder; Mokele Mbembe, genesis creation mythology; why there is something rather than nothing; facilitated communication; Celebrating the Reason Rally; moral cognition testing; faith in the age of science…
View table of contents and availability

volume 17 number 2Climate Change Q&A

How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human Caused; Special Section on Perception Self-Deception; Special Section on Evidence-Based Medicine; A Historical and Physiological Perspective on a World War II Aviation Mystery; Talking to the Dead: An Empirical Study on the Psychological Aspects of Interpreting Electronic Voice Phenomena; Sleep Paralysis; Energy Medicine and Fantasy Physics; Depression Treatment…
View table of contents and availability

volume 17 number 1Scientology

Is Scientology a Cult?; New Revelations on the History, Future, and Reformation of Scientology; 9/11 Controlled Demolition Conspiracy Debunked; Can Science Deliver Eternal Life?; Was the Resurrection a Grief Hallucination?; Body Language Baloney?; The Secret Behind Outstanding Teaching; A Biologist on the Meaning of Life…
View table of contents and availability

volume 16 number 3Islam

The Mythic Origins of the Qur’an; Imams, Fatwas, Jihads and Jews—Sense and Nonsense about Muslims and the Middle East; Muslim Creationism and the Curious Case of Harun Yahya; Skepdoc on Aspartame: Safe Sweetener or Perilous Poison?; Science and the Is/Ought Problems; Myths About Fat and What to Do About It…
View table of contents and availability

volume 16 number 2The Origin of Life

How Did Life Begin; How Close Are We to Creating Life in the Lab?; Who Still Believes in 9/11 Conspiracies?; What is Naturopathy?; Was Hypatia of Alexandria a Scientist?; Stradivarius Pseudoscience; Lying About Placebos…
View table of contents and availability

volume 16 number 1The Happiness Industry

Our Cultural Obsession with Happiness; The Happiness Industry; Workplace Happism; When to Avoid Optimism; The Myth of Quantum Consciousness; Motorcycle Maintenance Without the Zen; The Science of Changing People’s Minds…
View table of contents and availability

volume 15 number 4Climate Skeptics

Climate Skeptics: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Dowsing Rod Bomb Detectors; Sex & Astrology; What is Truth?; Stigma of Being an Atheist; Health Hype: Are We Really Living Longer? Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? Do Environmental Chemicals Destroy Male Fertility? Boosting Your Immune System; Teaching Strategies: Magic in the Classroom; The Grinnell Experiment…
View table of contents and availability

volume 15 number 3Mind Myths

Top Ten Psych Myths; Is the Mind Designed or a Kludge?; Debunking Diagnoses in the DSMV; How the Psychic Industry Works; Is Instant Language Learning Possible?; Battle for Evolution; Resurrection of Margaret Mead; Dangers of First Contact with Aliens; Norm Levitt’s Last Defense of Science…
View table of contents and availability

volume 14 number 4Fooled by Ponzi (and Madoff)

How Bernard Madoff Made Off with My Money; What to Eat: Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants; Misleading by Petition; A Skeptic Visits Noah’s Ark; The Art of Cold Reading…
View table of contents and availability

volume 14 number 3The New Revisionism

volume 14 number 2Evolution of Intelligence

Predicting Evolution; The Role of Contingency & Necessity in the Evolution of Higher Intelligence; Evolution in Our Genes; Expelled Exposed; The Matrix of the Brain…
View table of contents and availability

volume 14 number 1Global Warming

volume 13 number 4Quirkology

The Big Truths in Small Things; Skeptical Analysis of the Evidence for Nonhuman Primate Language; The Myth of the Mozart Effect; Consciousness is Nothing But a Word…
View table of contents and availability

volume 06 number 1Science & Society

E.O. Wilson’s Consilience: Can We Unify All Knowledge?; Deconstructing James Van Praagh: How He Talks To the Dead by Michael Shermer; Junior Skeptic: Emily Rosa Tests Therapeutic Touch With a Disarmingly Simple Method; The Ancient Tradition of the Evil Eye!; James Randi on New Age Technology; Humor: Dumbth News; Legalizing Fraud in the Name of Religion; Holocaust Revisionism Update; Stephen Hawking v. Frank Tipler; A Skeptic’s Guide to the Drug Policy Debate; When Journalists Should Not Be Objective; The Graduate Record Exam as Fringe Science.
View table of contents and availability

volume 01 number 3Revolution in Evolution?

volume 01 number 2Cryonics

Can Science Cheat Death?; Use and Abuse of Statistics in the “Real World”; Reaching for Tomorrow; Altered States and the Quest for Transcendence; Q & A About Cryonics…
View table of contents and availability

volume 01 number 1Tribute to Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov Tributes by Steve Allen, Martin Gardner and Harlan Ellison; Skeptics Society’s Manifesto; The Most Precious Thing We Have — The Triumph of the Scientific Method…
View table of contents and availability

Popular Articles
on skeptic.com

Carbon Comic, which appears in Skeptic magazine, is created by Kyle Sanders: a pilot and founder of Little Rock, Arkansas’ Skeptics in The Pub. He is also a cartoonist who authors Carbon Dating: a skeptical comic strip about science, pseudoscience, and relationships. It can be found at carboncomic.com.

Planning on shopping at Amazon? By clicking on our Amazon affiliate link, which will open the Amazon Store in your Internet browser, the Skeptics Society will receive a small commission on your purchase. Your prices for all products remain the same, yet you’ll provide essential financial support for the work of the nonprofit Skeptics Society.

Who believes them? Why? How can you tell if they’re true?

What is a conspiracy theory, why do people believe in them, and why do they tend to proliferate? Why does belief in one conspiracy correlate to belief in others? What are the triggers of belief, and how does group identity factor into it? How can one tell the difference between a true conspiracy and a false one?

The Science Behind Why People See Ghosts

Do you know someone who has had a mind altering experience? If so, you know how compelling they can be. They are one of the foundations of widespread belief in the paranormal. But as skeptics are well aware, accepting them as reality can be dangerous…